The Blacks crept stealthily down the chimney and battered in his skull while he slept." One could guess the whole drama from that little text.

The curtain was up.

It would not fall until the mastership of one party or the other was determined--and permanently: "There was treachery on both sides.

The Blacks killed the Whites when they found them defenseless, and the Whites slew the Blacks in a wholesale and promiscuous fashion which offended against my childish sense of justice.
"They were regarded as little above the level of brutes, and in some cases were destroyed like vermin.
"Here is an instance.

A squatter, whose station was surrounded by Blacks, whom he suspected to be hostile and from whom he feared an attack, parleyed with them from his house-door.